Appeal to support Dream A Dream..

In 2007 I raised about Rs 80,000/- for Dream A Dream via the Bangalore ultra and Mumbai marathon. This time I have the ambitous goal of raising much higher amount. Having volunteered at several of the IT programs for children from NGOs like Ananya and Vishwas I have experienced first hand the tremendous imapct DaD is making on vulnurable children in Bangalore. Volunteering for DaD and interacting with the dedicated and passionate employees of the organisation has also provided me huge learning and also a sense of satisfaction of making a small contribution to make a difference.

I am a bit behind in my fund raising goals this year. I know a number of runners who are successfully raising funds for a number of different causes. So there's no dearth of donors. It seems to me that people give more readily for causes related to health care, natural disasters and disabilities. Dream a Dream is doing something that is quite niche - it seeks to empower children from vulnerable backgrounds by developing life skills and at the same time sensitising the community through active volunteering leading to a non-discriminatory society.

However with the help of a number of supporters and well-wishers I hope to raise significant funds and make up over the next few months leading up to the Mumbai marathon in January 2009. Meanwhile, if anyone who would like to support this cause has any questions or clarifications regarding the work done by DaD then do not hesitate to get in touch with me. If required I can also put you in touch with Vishal or one of the other wonderful employees of DaD. Any contribution, however big or small, will be highly appreciated!

Kaveri trail Marathon 2008

Completed the full marathon today in 4:42:19 - while it was a bit slower than what I would have liked I am still quite satisfied. The course, while mostly flat, turned out to be tougher than anticipated - the terrain was quite uneven with stretches of stones. While the weather was mostly OK with patches of sun and clouds it was very warm whenever the sun was out. At times it seemed almost s warm as Mumbai minus the humidity. I did the first half in 2:05 and felt I would be able to finish around 4:30. However, the 4rth leg turned out to be very very difficult. My hamstrings were hurting and I ended up walking in small stretches which I rarely do in my marathons. The finish was also not as strong as my usual marathons(and this was my 14th one including the Ultra!). I felt a a bit nauseous after the finish and recovered from it only after the lunch. I am not sure why this happened - the only thing I can think of that I did differently is eating salted peanuts. In any case I broke the cardinal principle of not doing anything new in a marathon - I have never eaten salted peanuts in a 25K+ run before . I also had a 'bad laces day' today - my laces coming out at least 3 times.

The race itself was reasonably well organised - the bus from Cubbon Park with the Full marathon runners not arriving on time was a setback. As a consequence, full marathon runners started in 2 batches at 6:45am and 7:45 am respectively. Not having RFID based chip timings was another setback . It worked well at the Mformation Urban Stampede and would have gone well with the runners. Finally, despite there be 4 water stops in the 10.5Km course I felt that the water stops should have had small water bottles for runners to carry along with them. The kind of day it was ,many runners ,including myself, would have preferred to sip water continuously.
Click here and here to see some wonderful pictures of this magnificant trail.

Thanx to Pankaj Rai of Red Dragon fame for driving to and fro to KTM today - he did a phenomenonal job specially on the return leg. It must have not been easy after completing a Full Marathon under tough conditions. I would also like to thank Vishal Talreja and Jaydeep for taking the time to leave comments wishing me recovery from my back strain. Now onto the ultra in 4 weeks!

Misbehaving Garmin Forerunner 305

I have owned a Garmin Forerunner 305 since July 2007 - a device with a GPS receiver and a wireless heart rate monitor that has made significant contribution to the improvement in my long distance running over the last year or so. While initially I used the device to monitor and control my heart rate during speed training (tempo or fartlek runs) subsequently I have become addicted to the pace data that it provides on a real-time basis. Now when I set out on a run I break down the target distance and completion time in terms of the average pace(Minutes per Km) required to achieve it. I then fine tune my pace by continually monitoring the current and average pace during my run. eg to finish around 4:30 in tomorrow's KTM I plan to keep my average pace around 6 and a half minutes per Km. (There are several pace calculators on the net - this one is quite cool!). I am so used to the gadget now that I often wonder how I trained and ran my first 7 marathons without one. So much so that I am not too satisfied with a run if I don't have the Garmin 305 on my wrist or if the battery dies during a run.

The main reason for this post is that since the last 2 months or so my Garmin device has started misbehaving. I have experienced a couple of issues:
a) At times it seemed to be losing time ie showing a lower time and distance than actual - this happened for the first time at the Hyderabad marathon in August - the device showed 3:59 and 41.2Km at the finish. Of course, I ignored the distance and was thrilled thinking I had done my first sub 4 hr marathon only to realise later that my Garmin had acted up!

b) The bigger problem is that increasing frequency the device powers off with a message saying low battery when powering it on in the morning even if it has been fully charged the night before. This is irritating as then I have to run without the device. This seems to be a known problem with the device. Checkout Garmin Edge 305 Lockup / Not Powering Up Problems or Power Problems with Garmin 305 . I continue to get the problem on and off even after implementing the suggested solution.

I hope the device works fine during KTM tomorrow - I intend to update the firmware on it soon thereafter.

Count down to Numero Trois : KTM 2008

With just about 12 hours to go before the start of this years Kaveri Trail Marathon this Sunday I seem to have recovered from last weekend's muscle pull. The back strain has vanished completely and the numbness in the foot that I had during the week is almost gone. I attribute this to the two sessions I had with Doc Rajat and Sarika at Back to Fitness and a week of rest - I ran a 7K and 5K, did not cycle at all and skipped my strengthening sessions at Manipal. Normally I take 2 days of rest before a marathon or a 32K+ long run. This time I made an exception and I did a slow 5K on Friday - in order to put in at least 2 days of running in the week before the Full Marathon.

Went to the pasta party at Herbs and Spice, Indiranagar on Friday evening - as always it was great to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones over decent food. Among the new people I got to chat with are MD Ramaswamy who's coming back from injury and doing a 10K tomorrow, Pallavi and Gaurav founders of the North Indian Vegetarian restaurant chain MastKalandar and Anjana Kaul of Footprint Ventures - a VC firm that has funded them. Personally, I liked the food and the ambience here more than the Bistro on Brigade road where RFL pre-race parties have been held in the past. The fact that this place is much closer to where I live did not hurt! BTW - I (and my family members) love the food at MastKalandar too.

Little disappointed to learn from A2 that there won't be chip timings in tomorrow's run due to the unavailability of the vendor of the RFId system. I am now looking forward to a decent run tomorrow. The KTM route is quite flat and based on last year's performances of runners its tempting to try nd do a 'fast' full marathon. However, I don't think its prudent to push oneself tomorrow and I will be satisfied with a finish between 4:30 and 4:45 and NO after effects.!!

Down with a lower back strain or is it a sprain?

"A strain is a muscle or tendon injury; a sprain is a ligament injury. Back strain is also referred to as pulled back muscles." I came across this at Bigbackpain while researching lower back pain on the net. And the reason for spending the Sunday evening doing this research is to assure myself that I will recover in time to run the Kaveri Trail Marathon on 19th October. While stretching yesterday morning, I pulled my lower back muscle on the left side. This muscle has been strained a few times before but this time it seems to be much more severe and coming so close to a race has made this one of the most depressing weekends in recent memory. After the 50K clocked last week, this week was anyway planned to be an easy one with maximum of 30K run. I did 20K between Wednesday and Friday and was planning to do an easy one at the Hash run off Old Madras road on Sunday afternoon. After straining the back yesterday morning I have been pretty much resting the weekend and also taking pain killers. I feel much better Sunday evening but still not fully recovered. Apprehensive about running the KTM next Sunday and fearing the worst(need to take an extended break from running and inability to continue my '12 in 12 at 50 endeavour') has made me very irritated - with the family at home bearing the brunt of the irritation. It is always challenging to maintain a balance between work, family life and long distance running and injury only adds to this- more on this in a future post...

Two consecutive days of running

Personally I very rarely run 2 consecutive days. My weekly training schedule typically consists of 3 days of running including a weekend 'long' run and 2 days of cycling. I rest two mornings in a week - I do go to Manipal hospital for strength training in the evening of weekday rest day. While training to run the 1st Bangalaore ultra in 2007 I did a couple of long runs on consecutive weekend days as this is recommended as part of ultra training. This weekend was an exception to my cardinal principle - I ran on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was a great 12K run at EGL catching up with Rajesh Vetcha(another passionate running evangelist and also a key organiser of the Hyderabad marathon). I had planned to do a 20K + run on Sunday but when Rajesh called Friday afternoon saying he was in town and available for a run Saturday morning I could not let the opportunity go. I then decided to do the 20K+ run on Sunday instead. Due to the time commitment required including the to and fro travel I skipped the fortnightly RFL run at ONV and ran solo at EGL. I ended up doing 25K in just under 2 hours 30 minutes and clocking a total of 50K this week. The left calf muscle hurt a bit towards the end of the run but otherwise it was pretty good. I do not remember the last time I ran over 20K alone - it was not as difficult or boring(thanx to the 'Time tunnel' on Radio Indigo) as I had anticipated it to be.

Running in a coffee plantation

During my wonderful vacation last week at the homestay called Nature Nirvana in the midst of a coffee plantation about 35Kms north of Chikmaglur I did a couple of runs of 5K and 7.5K within the property. The runs were fantastic - greenery all round, chirping birds , hardly a sign of another human being and a daschund called Mala for company . At the same time they were tough due to steep gradients and also very uneven terrain with lots of stones. In such terrain there is high risk of either twisting your leg or tripping - the soft surface ofcourse is kinder on the legs. My average run speed was 6 minutes 45 seconds per Km and even at that speed I was pretty tired at the end of the run. However, the runs were immensely enjoyable!

What's the point of running marathons?

See Runners for Life discussion forum for an interesting discussion on this topic. Most certainly if one is interested in health and fitness it is not necessary to run marathons. Its sufficient to run/walk 45 minutes a day 4-5 times a week. So why run marathons? According to the article Why run marathons because it's there, it's hard, yet an average person can do it. My personal view is that most of us amateur marathoners do it for the satisifaction of achieving a challenging goal and the high that comes with it, that is, the benefits are more internal than external. And once we achieve the goal of completing of our first full marathon many of us set ourselves even more challenging goals. This could be in terms of running faster marathons (and qualifying for Boston) or greater number of marathons (say 3 marathons in 3 months or 12 marathons in 12 months 0r 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days ) or running extreme marathons(such as the Great Tibetan Marathon) or running beyond marathon distances : 50K, 100K or even 100 miles. None of these challenges are necessary for the health benefits but still lots of runners are doing this and the tribe is growing rapidly!!

Recovery after the September marathon

The week after a marathon, often called the recovery week, is very critical perhaps as much if not more than the week before the marathon. After the completion of a marathon several muscles get stiff and sore specially the hamstring. The time taken for recovery of these muslces varies from runner to runner. In general, it is recommended that the week after a full marathon should be a week of resting with some walking/cross-training towards the end of the week. After the Marathon and Hal Higdon's Post-marathon training guide are two sources of information on training in the period immediate after the marathon.

In my case the recovery after thr RFL Kanakpura run was very quick : I was able to do a comfortable 31 munutes 5K within 48 hours of the run ie on Tuesday. I followed this up with a 8K run on Thursday and a slow 12K run in Cubbon park on Saturday. I guess once you have run several marathons recovery is also much faster. This has definitely been my fastest every recovery. (Apart from the fact that I ran a half marathon at KTM last year within 8 days of doing my personal best full marathon finish at Suntrust Richmond marathon).

Two Done, Ten to go!

With Nagaraj in the 3rd loop (approx 25K)


As planned, I had an easy week leading upto Sunday 21st September with 8K runs on Monday and Thursday and 10K cycling on Tuesday and Wednesday. Got a bit of a scare Friday evening/Saturday morning with a niggle in the hamstring. However, by Satuday evening I felt quite OK. Finalised the logistics of getting to the starting point by 530 . The plan was to drive with Deepak picking up Doc and Ashok along the way . Manoj and Athreya planned to come on their own. The idea was to start running latest by 545am so that one was done with the run by 1030 am or so. Manoj, Deepak, Doc and myself were planning to do the full 42.2Km while Ashok and Athreya were planning to do a Long one..

On Sunday morning when Doc sent an SMS to me around 3:45am dropping out, we changed our driving plans. Deepa, along with Amit, picked me up at Big Bazaar and we met Ashok in Koramangla. Ashok was then the navigator to get us to the starting point. Dharam joined us at Family Mart and followed us in his car. We got to the starting point a little after 530am. Amazingly there were at least 10 other runners already waiting there. So around 545am we took off. A2/Nikhil had talked about a loop of 10 or 10.5 Km. However, there was some confusion in the first loop and we had to do the lake bed twice to get 10Km loop which was not that much fun. At dawn the run across the lake bed was really great. Several runners started their run today between 545 and the actual RFL run start after 630am. So the RFL run got a bit disrupted. Having run the route a couple of times before I was well aware this would be a tough course with several fairly steep gradients. However, it turned out to be much tougher than I anticipated with the side loop also having steep, long gradients.So much so that I started wandering whether I made a mistake in attempting a full marathon at this location. Even though it was partly cloudy whenever the sun came out it was quite warm. The first 2 laps went off quite well. Was at the 22K mark around 2:10(compared to 1:59 in Hyderabad a month ago). Ran the first loop with Suresh and Chandra. In the second loop it was a pleasant surprise to see Nagaraj - he was coming back from an extended leg injury. It was great catching up with him over 15 K or so. Around the 26K mark was quite zapped by a fluroscent yellow T-shirt runner - there was doc sprinting by. He woke up late and decided to run after all! which was great for me as he kept pace with me pretty much till the end. Thanx a lot Doc! - I would have found it harder without your company. Doc was also very supportive when I tripped and almost fell when turning at the end of the lake bed in the 4rth loop. Doc, ofcourse, is an amazing runner - he had done a 45K the previous day at Cubbon Park - most of it running solo. The 4rth loop specially the last 2 Kms to the starting point was a really killer. Slowed down considerably in the gradient - 7:30 minutes per Km. Ended the run around 10:15 with a small stretch on Kanakpura road as each loop was 10K. . Manoj, Deepak and I finished together. Ashok and Athreya had completed earlier. I am pretty satsified with my just under 4:30 finish - just what I had targeted for. The support from RFL volunteers was good- the 2nd water point was a real boon! Also it was nice to be cheered and encouraged by several runners who knew me and were aware that I was doing the full 42K. Thank folks- really appreciated all the support!. It was also very heartening to note that a few runners ran their first 30K yesterday despite it being a very tough course. Click here for the RFL pictures of the run.

Had a quick breakfast of masala dosas and vadas at Vaishnavi before returning back home.

Though I felt really tired towards the end of the run , later in the day it felt that the muscles were less sore and fatigued compared to the previous marathons. Was able to climb up and down staircases much more easily than before. And thankfully there were no signifcant niggles in the left calf or hamstring. I am attributing this to the strength training that I have been doing at the Manipal hospital for the last 4 months or so. Even though I often wake up quite early on the morning of a marathon (it was 3:20am yesterday) I have never ever felt like sleeping or even lying down after finishing one. Au contraire, I normally feel quite energetic and good about myself after a nice long run. Now, onto the 3rd one at the Kaveri Trail Marathon on 19th October!!

Less than a week to go for the September run..

Despite having run several marathons, the week before another marathon seems to be always a nervous week. One is apprehensive about possible illness or injury during this time. Its been easygoing weekend for me with no cycling or running either Saturday or Sunday. Will be doing a couple of 8-9K runs probably on Monday and Thursday with 10K of cycling on the days in between.

Also, this is the first time, after 2002, that I will be running 40K+ distance outside of an actual race or event. Way back in 2002 when I first took to distance running and did not know of any fellow runners in Bangalore I used to do my long training runs alone. And in training for my first full marathon I have done 16 loops of a 2.5Km loop a couple of times. I cannot imagine doing this ever again - now that I have been doing long runs in company for the last few years. I can at most run 2 hours or so(approx 20 Kms) alone - anything beyond that would be tough to do now. On 21st September since it is a regular RFL run there should be plenty of company for at least the first couple of hours. Doc Rajat and Deepak have expressed interrest in doing the full 42Km. While they will both run much faster it will still help me to know that I am not the only one doing the full marathon.